You can access the Alabama Secretary of State official website to find the form itself. The club’s one by-law? The Crimson Tide Scholarship Fund (CTSF) is the annual scholarship fund for Alabama Athletics, providing annual scholarship support for Crimson Tide student-athletes. In years past, the club’s primary vessel for hope and help was the scholarship endowment it had created in 1983. "I’m glad that when I see a lot of the kids, they have Bama shirts on," Johnny Nicola said. Nicola first visited Alabama in 1968 with his brother. ( Log Out / Q & A: Is Cosmetic Dentistry Right For Me? Enter your email address to follow us and receive notifications of new posts by email. Back then, if anyone in Bridgeport followed college football, he or she followed Notre Dame or Penn State (when they weren’t living and dying with the Eagles on Sundays, that is). But I liked him from jump street. Multilock Marlene | April 29, 2016 at 2:31 am, 9. Finally, now that these steps are completed, gather all of your booster club’s official organization documents such as your certificate of formation, articles of incorporation, your EIN, and even copies of Form 1023. My couple days there, everything was Alabama football.”. Amy | December 9, 2014 at 3:18 am. Franzone said the love of the Crimson Tide will carry the club. Both of them had grown up in Bridgeport, a blue-collar, mostly Italian, mostly Catholic borough near Norristown: Narrow, sloping streets packed with rowhouses. And they came away so hooked on Bryant’s mystique and the program’s excellence — Alabama claims 17 national championships — that they invited more friends on a return trip to Tuscaloosa the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that. vincent Carnaggio | May 16, 2011 at 7:27 pm, Johnny Nicola We plan to attend the Bama ,Penn State game this fall and would like to see you and renew old friendships .Vincent, 2. Or, if you want a broader look on how you can create or maintain your own booster club in any location, you can access Booostr’s Booster Club Blog for advice! Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted. In a small Pennsylvania town hundreds of miles away from Alabama, a decades-long love affair has been blossoming between a booster club and … Bama Booster member Joe Kekoanui enjoyed the notoriety their accents gave them in the South. There have been 15 national titles—seven since 1971. New guidelines issued by the Alabama Department of Education outline accountability measures for parent groups, booster clubs and other school-related organizations across the state. A former Arizona State football player, Fulton has given more than $100 million to his alma mater and sits on the board of the Sun Devil Club, the school’s booster organization. New leaders have to learn the ropes quickly and are often tasked with challenging fundraising initiatives soon after joining the organization. In addition to the federal filings, the state of Alabama requires that, before all else, your organization has a statement that your booster club will not take part in any prohibited political activity. "I mean, we’re all human beings.”, © 2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. I was terrified. Some local newspapers at the time referred to the group as the "Italian Battalion" because most of the club members were of Italian descent. “We’re just trying to keep people a little more upbeat about things,” Kekoanui, 35, said. He’ll have visitors from home soon. In terms of documentation, to obtain federal and state tax-exemption, your Albama booster club will need to complete Form 1023 and submit it to the IRS. This is the story of a group of Italian-Catholic guys from Pennsylvania who had to go a thousand miles to find a football coach to root for. I know they would enjoy meeting with some” northern” Tide fans and watching the game with them. One got 20 breakfast pizzas. While his late brother, Jerry, was chief of police and then mayor in Bridgeport, Nicola may well be the unofficial mayor of Tuscaloosa. I live in Bucks a County but grew up in Alabama and am a huge Bama fan. Thanks to a Technologically-driven Strategic Plan, Students at the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur Thrive – Even During a Pandemic. “My brother in law, Tony Chiccino, played for Coach Bryant at the University of Kentucky, and he was a teammate of Dude Hennessey, who became one of Coach Bryant’s assistants at Alabama,” Nicola explains. Now 70, Nicola recalls the first time he and his largely Italian booster club asked to see legendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in his office. Parent and parent/teacher associations and organizations are one of the more common types of Alabama booster clubs, providing a resource for the public schools of the state. But only Johnny Nicola flies a University of Alabama flag and has a patio set with a Crimson Tide umbrella at his King of Prussia home.